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BLACKWELL COMPANIONS TO THE ANCIENT WORLD

This series provides sophisticated and authoritative overviews of periods of ancient history, genres of classical literature, and the most important themes in ancient culture. Each volume comprises approximately twenty‐five and forty concise essays written by individual scholars within their area of specialization. The essays are written in a clear, provocative, and lively manner, designed for an international audience of scholars, students, and general readers.

A Companion to Latin Literature
Edited by Stephen Harrison

A Companion to the Ancient Near East
Edited by Daniel C. Snell

A Companion to Ancient Epic
Edited by John Miles Foley

A Companion to Greek Tragedy
Edited by Justina Gregory

A Companion to the Roman Empire
Edited by David S. Potter

A Companion to the Roman Republic
Edited by Nathan Rosenstein and Robert Morstein‐Marx

A Companion to the Classical Greek World
Edited by Konrad H. Kinzl

A Companion to Roman Rhetoric
Edited by William Dominik, Jon Hall

A Companion to Roman Religion
Edited by Jörg Rüpke

A Companion to the Classical Tradition
Edited by Craig W. Kallendorf

A Companion to Greek Rhetoric
Edited by Ian Worthington

A Companion to Catullus
Edited by Marilyn B. Skinner

A Companion to Classical Receptions
Edited by Lorna Hardwick and Christopher Stray

A Companion to Greek and Roman Political Thought
Edited by Ryan K. Balot

A Companion to the Roman Army
Edited by Paul Erdkamp

A Companion to Greek Religion
Edited by Daniel Ogden

A Companion to Ancient History
Edited by Andrew Erskine

A Companion to Ovid
Edited by Peter E. Knox

A Companion to Archaic Greece
Edited by Kurt A. Raaflaub and Hans van Wees

A Companion to Late Antiquity
Edited by Philip Rousseau

A Companion to Julius Caesar
Edited by Miriam Griffin

A Companion to Hellenistic Literature
James J. Clauss and Martine Cuypers

A Companion to the Ancient Greek Language
Edited by Egbert J. Bakker

A Companion to Byzantium
Edited by Liz James

A Companion to Horace
Edited by Gregson Davis

A Companion to Ancient Macedonia
Edited by Joseph Roisman and Ian Worthington

A Companion to Families in the Greek and Roman Worlds
Edited by Beryl Rawson

A Companion to Greek Mythology
Edited by Ken Dowden and Niall Livingston

A Companion to the Latin Language
Edited by James Clackson

A Companion to Greek and Roman Historiography
Edited by John Marincola

A Companion to the Punic Wars
Edited by Dexter Hoyos

A Companion to Women in the Ancient World
Edited by Sharon L. James and Sheila Dillon

A Companion to Sophocles
Edited by Kirk Ormand

A Companion to Marcus Aurelius
Edited by Marcel van Ackeren

A Companion to the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East
Edited by Daniel T. Potts

A Companion to Augustine
Edited by Mark Vessey

A Companion to Roman Love Elegy
Edited by Barbara K. Gold

A Companion to Greek Art
Tyler Jo Smith and Dimitris Plantzos

A Companion to Persius and Juvenal
Edited by Susanna Braund and Josiah Osgood

A Companion to Tacitus
Edited by Victoria Emma Pagán

A Companion to Ancient Greek Government
Edited by Hans Beck

A Companion to the Neronian Age
Edited by Emma Buckley and Martin Dinter

A Companion to the Archaeology of the Roman Republic
Edited by Jane DeRose Evans

A Companion to Terence
Edited by Antony Augoustakis and Ariana Traill

A Companion to Roman Architecture
Edited by Roger B. Ulrich and Caroline K. Quenemoen

A Companion to the Ancient Novel
Edited by Edmund P. Cueva and Shannon N. Byrne

A Companion to Ethnicity in the Ancient Mediterranean
Edited by Jeremy McInerney

A Companion to Sport and Spectacle in Greek and Roman Antiquity
Edited by Paul Christesen and Donald G. Kyle

A Companion to Greek and Roman Sexualities
Edited by Thomas K. Hubbard

A Companion to Plutarch
Edited by Mark Beck

A Companion to Ancient Thrace
Edited by Julia Valeva, Emil Nankov and Denver Graninger

A Companion to the Archaeology of Religion in the Ancient World
Edited by Rubina Raja and Jörg Rüpke

A Companion to Ancient Aesthetics
Edited by Pierre Destrée and Penelope Murray

A Companion to Food in the Ancient World
Edited by John Wilkins and Robin Nadeau

A Companion to Ancient Education
Edited by W. Martin Bloomer

A Companion to Greek Literature
Edited by Martin Hose and David Schenker

A Companion to Greek Democracy and the Roman Republic
Edited by Dean Hammer

A Companion to Livy
Edited by Bernard Mineo

A Companion to Ancient Egyptian Art
Edited by Melinda K. Hartwig

A Companion to Roman Art
Edited by Barbara E. Borg

A Companion to the Etruscans
Edited by Sinclair Bell and Alexandra A. Carpino

A Companion to the Flavian Age of Imperial Rome
Edited by Andrew Zissos

A Companion to Roman Italy
Edited by Alison E. Cooley

A Companion to Science, Technology, and Medicine in Ancient Greek and Rome
Edited by Georgia L. Irby

A Companion to Greek Architecture
Edited by Margaret M. Miles

A Companion to Josephus
Edited by Honora Howell Chapman and Zuleika Rodgers

A Companion to Assyria
Edited by Eckart Frahm

A Companion to Ancient Greece and Rome on Screen
Edited by Arthur J. Pomeroy

A Companion to Euripides
Edited by Laura K. McClure

A Companion to Sparta
Edited by Anton Powell

A COMPANION TO RELIGION IN LATE ANTIQUITY


Edited by

Josef Lössl and Nicholas J. Baker‐Brian







Wiley Logo

List of Figures

28.1 Purim scene from the Book of Esther; Dura Europos synagogue; dating from the first half of the third century CE; © Princeton University Press
28.2 Stone‐cut reliefs of Lunar and Solar deities at Sumatar Harabesi, southeastern Turkey; © Emma Loosley
28.3 Crucifixion scene from the Rabbula Gospel; Florence, Biblioteca Mediceo Laurenziana Plut. I 56 (sixth century) fol. 13r; © Biblioteca Mediceo Laurenziana
28.4 View of the basilica at Resafa (Sergiopolis, Syria Euphratensis) looking east over the bema toward the apse; © Emma Loosley
28.5 The Jurjir gate, the only part of a tenth‐century mosque in Isfahan still extant, perfectly demonstrates the evolution of Islamic art from natural vegetal forms toward abstract geometric motifs; © Emma Loosley

List of Maps

1 The Western Mediterranean and the Celtic and Germanic North and West ca. sixth century CE; created by Kirsty Hardingli
2 The Nile, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Arabia; created by Kirsty Hardinglii
3 Cities, regions and borders of the later Roman empire; created by Kirsty Hardingliii
4 The Sassanian empire: places, regions, and borders; created by Kirsty Hardingliv
5 The “Greek east” with Southern Italy, Syria, Egypt, and Palestine; created by Kirsty Hardinglv

List of Tables

10.1 Narrative content and key outcomes of the Acts of Thomas218
14.1 Christian sectarian diversity according to proto‐orthodox authors304
14.2 Individual works in the Nag Hammadi, Bruce and Askew, Berlin, and Tchacos codices306
14.3 Irenaeus’ exposition of the Ptolemaean myth307

Notes on Contributors

Aziz Al‐Azmeh is CEU University Professor in the Department of History, Central European University, Budapest. Among his books in English are The Emergence of Islam in Late Antiquity: Allah and His People (2014), The Arabs and Islam in Late Antiquity: A Critique of Approaches to Arabic Sources (2014), and Muslim Kingship: Power and the Sacred in Muslim, Christian and Pagan Polities (1996).

Nikoloz Aleksidze is a Research Associate at the History Faculty, Oxford (The Cult of Saints Project) and a Junior Research Fellow at Pembroke College, Oxford. He has also worked as an Assistant Professor at Free University Tbilisi. His monograph, The Schism: An Interpretive Schema of Caucasian History, is currently in press. Meanwhile he is working on a monograph with a working title Religion and Political Thought in Georgia.

Nicholas J. Baker‐Brian is Senior Lecturer in New Testament and Early Christian Studies at Cardiff University. He has published a wide range of books and articles relating to Manichaeism including Manichaeism. An Ancient Faith Rediscovered (2011), and Manichaeism in the Later Roman Empire. A Study of Augustine’s Contra Adimantum (2009). He is also the co‐editor of Emperor and Author. The Writings of Julian the Apostate (2012). He is currently co‐editing a volume entitled The Reigns of the Sons of Constantine (expected 2018), and is also writing a study entitled The Reign of Constantius II (expected 2019). He is also currently researching a social history of Manichaeism in Late Antiquity.

Augustine Casiday is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at Cardiff University, an Associate Lecturer at the University of Glasgow, and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London. He has published on Christian monasticism in Late Antiquity, on Eastern Orthodox Christianity, and on methodology in contemporary theological research. His recent publications include Reconstructing the Theology of Evagrius Ponticus. Beyond Heresy (Cambridge University Press, 2013) and The Orthodox Christian World (Routledge, 2012).

Max Deeg is Professor of Buddhist Studies at Cardiff University. His main research interests are in the history of Buddhism and in the spread of Buddhism from India to Central Asia and East Asia. He is also interested in other religions in the wider Asian context (Hinduism, Jainism, Daoism, Manichaeism, Eastern Christianity) and in the history of research and its impact on academic narratives about Asian religions. His most recent book publication is Miscellanea Nepalica: Early Chinese Reports on Nepal. The Foundation Legend of Nepal in its Trans‐Himalayan Context (Lumbini International Research Institute, 2016).

Paul Dilley (PhD Yale, 2008) is Assistant Professor at the University of Iowa, with a joint appointment in the Departments of Classics and Religious Studies. His research focuses on early Christianity and the Religions of Late Antiquity, especially Egypt and Nubia, and he has published widely on monasticism, Manichaeism, apocryphal literature, and digital humanities. Dilley is a co‐editor of the Coptic Manichaean Kephalaia codex at the Chester Beatty Library, and author of Monasticism and the Care of Souls in Late Antiquity: Cognition and Discipline (Cambridge, 2017).

Lucy Grig is Senior Lecturer in Roman History in the Department of Classics at the University of Edinburgh. She edited Popular Culture in the Ancient World (Cambridge, 2017) and (together with Gavin Kelly) Two Romes: Rome and Constantinople in Late Antiquity (2012), and is the author of Making Martyrs in Late Antiquity (2004), as well as a number of articles and book chapters on the cultural, social, and religious history of Late Antiquity. She is currently writing a book tentatively entitled Popular Culture and the End of Antiquity in Southern Gaul, c. 400–550.

James M. Hegarty is Professor of Classical Indology at Cardiff University. He has an abiding interest in the role of narrative in the transmission and adaptation of religious knowledge in early, medieval, and modern South Asia. He has published papers on narrative in Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, and Sikh tradition, which span from the pre‐Common Era to the twentieth century. He is the author of Religion, Narrative and Public Imagination in South Asia (Routledge, 2012).

Mark Humphries is Professor of Ancient History at Swansea University. He has published widely on the history of early Christianity and the Roman world in Late Antiquity, and is a general editor of the series Translated Texts for Historians (Liverpool University Press). He is currently completing a study of the role of civil war in the disintegration of the Roman empire.

Hannah Hunt is a Visiting Research Fellow and Reader in Eastern Christianity, Leeds Trinity University. Among her most recent publications is A Guide to St. Symeon the New Theologian (Wipf and Stock—Cascade Books, 2015).

Thomas E. Hunt is Senior Lecturer in Theology at Newman University, Birmingham. His research interest is in Latin Patristics, especially the work and world of Jerome. His contribution to the present volume grew out of a project on Henri‐Irénée Marrou and his time.

Daniel King is an Honorary Research Fellow at the Cardiff University Centre for Late Antique Religion and Culture. Among his main research interests are the reception of Greek philosophical and scientific culture in Syriac, the transformation of literary and social culture in the East, and the study of Greek and Syriac grammar in Late Antiquity. His recent publications include The Earliest Syriac Version of Aristotle’s Categories (Brill, 2010) and a translation of John Philoponus, On Part–Whole Relations (Bloomsbury, 2014).

Dirk Krausmüller studied Greek, Latin, and Byzantine History, and earned his PhD in 2001 with a dissertation on the literary legacy of the Constantinopolitan monastery of Panagios (Queen’s University Belfast). He has published articles on a variety of topics, including the Middle Byzantine monastic reform movement and the Late Patristic and Byzantine theological and anthropological discourses. Between 2001 and 2016 he was Lecturer at Queen’s University Belfast, Cardiff University, and Mardin Artuklu University. Currently he works for a European Research Council Project on Aristotelian logic in the Early Middle Ages.

Clemens Leonhard is Professor of Liturgics at the Westfälische Wilhelms‐Universität, Münster. His research focus is on Christian liturgies in Antiquity, liturgies of the Syrian churches, and on comparing Jewish and Christian liturgies. Recent publications include The Jewish Pesach and the Origins of the Christian Easter (De Gruyter, 2006), and, in co‐editorship with Hermut Löhr, Literature or Liturgy? Early Christian Hymns and Prayers in their Literary and Liturgical Context in Antiquity (Mohr Siebeck, 2014).

Emma Loosley is Associate Professor of Theology and Religion at the University of Exeter, UK. Her work is interdisciplinary and employs the study of material culture to explore questions concerning the evolution of Christianity in Late Antiquity, particularly events following the Council of Chalcedon in 451. Her main area of expertise is late antique Syria and she currently holds European Research Council funding to explore the relationship between Syria and Georgia in Late Antiquity.

Josef Lössl is Professor of Religious Studies and Theology at Cardiff University with special interests in the study of Early Christianity and Greek and Latin Patristics. He is the Director of the Cardiff Centre for Late Antique Religion and Culture and Editor‐in‐Chief of Vigiliae Christianae: A Review of Early Christian Life and Language.

Sophie Lunn‐Rockliffe is a Lecturer in Patristics at Cambridge University and a Fellow in Theology at Peterhouse. She is the author of Ambrosiaster’s Political Theology (Oxford University Press, 2007). Her current major project is on late ancient ideas of the devil and demons, concentrating on notions of diabolical agency.

Hannah Mace studied Classics at the University of St Andrews, graduating with a PhD in Latin under the supervision of Dr Roger Rees in 2017. Her thesis focused on Firmicus Maternus’ Mathesis and astrological writing in Late Antiquity.

Bernhard Maier is Professor of Religious Studies (Allgemeine Religionswissenschaft) and European History of Religion (Europäische Religionsgeschichte) at the University of Tübingen and author of, among others, Die Religion der Kelten (2001), Die Religion der Germanen (2003), Die Kelten (third edition, 2016), and The Celts: A History from Earliest Times to the Present (2003).

Mar Marcos is Associate Professor of Ancient History at the University of Cantabria and author of numerous studies on the history of religion in the later Roman empire. Her interests include the role of Imperial legislation on religion, religious intolerance, and violence, and religious identity.

Heidi Marx is Associate Professor in the Department of Religion at the University of Manitoba and author of Spiritual Taxonomies and Ritual Authority: Platonists, Priests, and Gnostics in the Third Century C.E. (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016). Her research focuses on late Roman philosophy and medicine, and she is Co‐director of ReMeDHe, a working group for the study of religion, medicine, disability, and health in Late Antiquity.

Mischa Meier studied History and Classics at Ruhr‐University Bochum. He was Assistant Professor at the University of Bielefeld and Associate Professor at the University of Bonn. In 2004 he moved to Tübingen to take up a Chair in Ancient History, which he still holds. His research interests lie in the fields of Archaic and Classical Greek history, especially Sparta, the early Principate, Late Antiquity (fifth to seventh century) and the tradition of Antiquity in the nineteenth to twenty‐first centuries. His monographs include Aristokraten und Damoden (1998), Das andere Zeitalter Justinians (second edition, 2004), Anastasios I. (second edition, 2010), August 410—Ein Kampf um Rom (second edition, 2010, with S. Patzold), and Caesar und das Problem der Monarchie in Rom (2014). He is currently writing a book on the migration period between Antiquity and the Middle Ages.

Claudio Moreschini is Professor Emeritus of Latin Literature at the University of Pisa and the author of Hermes Christianus. The Intermingling of Hermetic Piety and Christian Thought (Brepols, 2011).

Tom O’Loughlin is Professor of Historical Theology at the University of Nottingham. Among his many projects his interest in the late antique and early medieval west and especially in its traditions of biblical exegesis has perhaps been the most abiding. It is best reflected in one of his most recent publications in this area, a collection of essays, Early Medieval Exegesis in the Latin West: Sources and Forms (Ashgate, 2013).

Hector M. Patmore is Lecturer in Hebrew and Judaism at the Department of Religious Studies and Theology, Cardiff University. He is the author of The Transmission of Targum Jonathan in the West (2015) and principal investigator in a project funded by the British Arts and Humanities Research Council on the interpretation of biblical ideas about evil and demons in ancient Judaism and Christianity.

Timothy Pettipiece teaches Classics and Religious Studies at Carleton University and the University of Ottawa. He specializes in the religions of Late Antiquity, particularly gnostic and Manichaean writings.

Jan R. Stenger is Douglas MacDowell Professor of Greek at the University of Glasgow. His research focuses on Greek lyric poetry and the Greek literature of Late Antiquity. He is especially interested in the relationship between Christianity and classical culture from the fourth to sixth centuries. Stenger’s publications include a monograph on identity construction in Late Antiquity (Hellenische Identität in der Spätantike, 2009), as well as articles on Libanius, John Chrysostom, and Choricius of Gaza.

Guy G. Stroumsa is Martin Buber Professor Emeritus of Comparative Religion at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Emeritus Professor of the Study of the Abrahamic Religions at the University of Oxford. His most recent research interests include the crystallization of the Abrahamic traditions in Late Antiquity, which culminated in The Making of the Abrahamic Religions in Late Antiquity (Oxford University Press, 2015), and The Scriptural Universe of Ancient Christianity (Harvard University Press, 2016).

Holger Zellentin (PhD Princeton, 2007) is Lecturer in Classical Rabbinic Judaism at the University of Cambridge Faculty of Divinity and author of The Qur’ān’s Legal Culture: The Didascalia Apostolorum as a Point of Departure (Mohr Siebeck, 2013). His current research is on the Qur’ān in its Jewish and Christian context and on Jewish (rabbinic) reactions to the Christianization of the Roman empire. He is especially interested in Jewish texts in Christian garb and in Jewish retellings of Christian texts.

Acknowledgments

The editors would like to thank all the contributors to this volume, especially for their diligence in preparing the manuscripts and for their patience with the extended editing and production process. We would like to extend special thanks to Haze Humbert from Wiley for accepting the volume into the program and to the anonymous readers for their helpful suggestions, as well as to Haze’s colleagues at Wiley, Ashley McPhee, Allison Kostka, and Janani Govindankutty, for their tireless efforts and support. At Cardiff we are grateful for generous support from the School of History, Archaeology and Religion graphics department. Our thanks here go to Kirsty Harding and Ian Dennis for editing the maps. Research and editorial work on the volume could not have been carried out without generous support in terms of funding research time from Cardiff University and the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council. Most of all, however, we owe thanks to our friends and families, to Gill, Sepp, and Adam, to Amanda and the Potts family, and to Sarah, Luke, and Amy. This one’s for Fred, who probably would have approved.